Father Bourgeois has been a priest since 1972 and is best known for his workwith the School of the Americas Watch (SOA Watch), a nonviolent organizationthat exposes the U.S.-based school, once called School of the Americas, andits role in training Latin American soldiers in repressive tactics anddeploying them throughout the region. Father Roy founded the SOA Watch in1990 after witnessing the killings of thousands in Central America in the1980's, but his conscious awakening and calling to priesthood happenedimmediately after his experience serving in Vietnam. He joined the MaryknollSociety, an American Catholic organization, and traveled to La Paz, Bolivia,where he was ordered to leave the country after speaking out against theoppressive government of General Hugo Banzer Suarez, which arrested,tortured and killed many dissidents. From there he went to El Salvador.After witnessing numerous human rights abuses that the Salvadorangovernment, with the financial support and military tactical aid of theUnited States government, committed against its own population and fellowmembers of foreign religious organizations, Bourgeois focused on where thesesoldiers were receiving their training: the School of the Americas.

The SOA Watch grew from a handful of protesters to hundreds, and eventuallyinto thousands today - with international recognition. Bourgeois and SOAWatch were nominated as a candidate for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize. TheSchool of the Americas, feeling national and international pressure, changedits name in 2001 to the Western Hemispheric Institute for SecurityCooperation (WHINSEC). Graduates of the school include former Boliviandictator Hugo Banzer Suarez, and Honduran General Romeo Vásquez Velásquez,who was a vital player in the recent coup there that ousted President ManuelZelaya in June 2009. The coup not only brought an end to a democraticgovernment, but it has also turned Honduras into a nightmare, with thehighest homicide rate in the world. Political repression is among the worstin the hemisphere: journalists, opposition activists, and LGBT activistshave been murdered with impunity. Graduates of the SOA, who head statesecurity forces under the illegitimate post-coup regime of Porfirio Lobo,work in complicity with private security forces to repress small farmers andcooperatives from defending the lands that provide their sustenance.Repression by SOA graduates also continues today in Colombia, Mexico, andthroughout the Americas.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) introduced the Latin American Military TrainingReview Act." The bill seeks immediate suspension and investigation of theschool. Efforts to move the Obama administration to close the school byexecutive order are underway as well.

In 2012, Father Roy traveled to Ecuador and Nicaragua, where he met withPresident Correa and President Ortega, who announced during their respectivemeetings that Ecuador and Nicaragua will no longer send soldiers or policeto be trained at the School of the Americas/ WHINSEC. Ecuador and Nicaraguajoin Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay and Venezuela, who are also no longersending troops to the SOA/WHINSEC.

Father Roy is also an outspoken proponent of women's ordination since "Therewill never be justice in the Catholic Church unless women are allowed to beordained." "Who are we to say that a woman's call to priesthood isn'tvalid?" said Father Roy. "God initiates the call to priesthood, and likeracism, sexism is a sin", he added.